"Barrin' fogs--always barrin' fogs!" Captain Cable had said as his last
word on leaving the Signal House. "If ye wait a month, never move in a
fog in these waters, or ye'll move straight to Davy Jones!"
And chance favored him, for a gale of wind came instead of a fog, one
of those May gales that sweep down from the northwest without warning or
reason.
At sunset the _Olaf_ had crept cautiously in from the west--a
high-prowed, well-decked, square-rigged steamer of the old school, with
her name written large amidships and her side-lights set aft. Captain
Petersen was a cautious man, and came on with the leadsman working like
a clock. He was a man who moved slowly. And at sea, as in life, he who
moves slowly often runs many dangers which a greater confidence and
a little dash would avoid. He who moves slowly is the prey of every
current.
Captain Petersen steamed in behind the beacon. He sighted the windmill
very carefully, very correctly, very cautiously. He described a
half-circle round the bank hidden a few feet below the muddy water. Then
he steamed slowly seawards, keeping the windmill full astern and the
beacon on his port quarter. When the beacon was bearing southeast he
rang the engine-room bell.
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